Evaluation of pharmaceutical assistance in cities of the 17th Regional Health Department/Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

The application of indicators to evaluate actions developed by the pharmaceutical assistance in cities is a strategy to organize the attention and management in health. The objective of this study is to evaluate the basic pharmaceutical assistance, using indicators, in the twenty cities that are part of the 17th CRS/RS. METHODS: cross-sectional study using indicators of the pharmaceutical assistance, proposed by the Health Department of the "Rio Grande do Sul" State (SES/RS), in each Local Health Department of the twenty cities that are part of the 17thCRS/RS from the city of Ijuí. In each city a person in charge of the pharmacy was interviewed. RESULTS: Only five cities had a pharmaceutical in charge of the pharmacy. Only 25% of the health workers have already participated in any sort of capacity building or training courses. Only 15% of the cities had a basic list of medicines fixed in a visible place. The control of stored medicines was done in 90% of the cities. Concerning the medicines used as indicators, 78% were available. The average of medicines by prescription is 2,0. Considering only the prescribed medicines, 76% belonged to the basic list of medicines, and 64% were prescribed according to the Brazilian Common Denomination or the International Common Denomination. Effectively, 88% of the prescribed medicines were distributed. CONCLUSIONS: The Basic Pharmaceutical Assistance in the cities requires a larger investment in human, physical and material resources. The absence of pharmaceuticals in the health team of the cities is one of the main reasons of the pharmaceutical low efficiency of health actions in this scope.